120 Comments

  1. Dr, Brown I was disappointed you didn’t allow my friend ישראל to speak much. I thought you may have wanted a Hebrew speaking Israeli on your show, especially on such a topic. I would have loved to listen to you guys dialog a little bit, but it is your show and you run it as you like.

    I do love your show and watch it almost everyday, but very disappointed today. Yishmerecha Elohei Yisrael.

  2. Concerning the name Japheth and his corresponding blessing and the paternal blessings throughout the Old testament…Are these blessing prophetic in nature? and if they are how are we supposed to understand these blessings. For example Japheth and the word enlarge Pathah…What is the nature of the word expansion in this blessing? is this in a geographical, familial, economic/finanacial(expand by increasing in livestock?)context? Also I was wondering about the three names of the sons of Noah: Japheth, Shem and Ham and what they mean and are their names prophetic and are their blessings prophetic?

  3. Dear Dr. Brown, are you serious when you say that “Yeshua” has no meaning?? This is what you said several months ago to a lady in this radio show!

    If you are – what then about Psalm 118:14 – what is the Hebrew word for “salvation” there?

    I know that in Hebrew you write “my salvation” together in one word, but if you leave the “my” part away you basically have the word “salvation” there.

    I’m not going into the right spelling of His name now since some people get plain silly about that as you also have realized – but I thought that “salvation” was a well established word in Hebrew.

  4. Second question: Will you be fine with me calling Him Yahshua – when I’ll let you call Him Jesus at the same time without getting bothered? Just curious.

    I do agree that there are way too many people who rather disassemble the body of Messiah than building it up by getting dogmatic about this question. There probably is a right spelling – but let our lives teach the people and not our words!!

  6. Hey, I’ve finally found His right name – see Isaiah 7:14
    His name is Immanuel!!! That means “with us is God”!

    Just to make the point: No matter how we call Him – spelled out in the right way or in the wrong way – we only will succeed if God is with us!

    So we might as well call Him Immanuel!! 🙂

  8. Dr Brown I was disappointed that you did not answer my question concerning the LORD’s holy name nor did you give me the opportunity to clarify.
    Encyclopedia Britannica which is written by Jewish and Hebrew academics, tells us that Yahweh was made up by a Christian and no Jewish authorities have ever accepted it. I have also found that all Hebrew Bibles and Hebrew dictionaries indicate that the LORD’s holy name should be pronounced as Yehovah, which has a different meaning to what you teach. Why the discrepancy?

    If I am not mistaken, I heard you say that ישוע (Yeshua) is a shortened form of Yehoshua? That surprised me because the word yeshua in the Hebrew language is a complete passive verb meaning salvation and is not shortened nor lengthened but rather Yehoshua (Joshua in English) is the word yeshua with a prefix added.

    I expected you to be keen to have a Hebrew speaking Israeli debate a little on this.

    Very disappointed,
    ישראל

  10. Hello Mr Brown,
    I agree with the post written by Eric. You should have that man Israel(the one from Israel) back on. I think it would be neat to hear the BOTH of you chat with each other about Jesus. Seeing that you both love the Lord and are also both Jewish.

    Praise the Lord.

    Blessings to you Mr Brown.. Jesus loves you : )

  13. Eric,

    First, we ran into a break when your friend called from Israel. Second, he apparently had no knowledge of Biblical Hebrew customs, otherwise he would not have asked that question. To repeat once more: In our Hebrew Bibles, the scribes took the consonants for YHWH and used the vowels for ‘adonay (Lord), which any Jew reading understood to mean, “Say Lord, not Yahweh.” Christian scholars in the middle ages who didn’t understand this convention thought this was an actual name, hence Yehowah or Jehovah — but the name doesn’t exist, just Yahshuah doesn’t exist.

  14. Erika,

    Since Jesus is the proper English way of saying Yeshua (through Greek) whereas Yahshuah is a made-up, non-existent name that does not correspond to Yeshua in any language, you are free to use that name, but you might just as well as say Harry or Joe. It’s not Yeshua’s name.

  16. If linguistic competence is a prerequisite for God to have mercy on you, then there is not much hope. Is not every living mortal to some degree bound by the limitations which are the result of the curse of Babel? I find it helpful to use the names Yeshua and Jesus, just to help make sure there is no misunderstanding. I have a very limited in that the only language in which I am fluent is English. I tried to learn German. Please introduce me to some German women, as my umlaut has gotten terribly rusty.

  18. Also, I’m curious seeing as you say Yehovah never existed. Yahweh does not exist in the Hebrew language today, so I am curious if you have any Jewish sources for this name as well, please.

  19. Mike,

    Interesting show. In general, I agree with what you have said, however, I have heard another view on YHVH being YeHoVaH and not YaHWeH, that I would like you to comment. See http://www.revive-israel.org/2007/yahweh_yehovah.htm for the entire article. It is held by a old friend that you used to minister with in the Beth Messiah days. The argument in a nutshell comes to the following points:
    1) Root of YHVH is “to be”. In ancient time V may have been pronounced as W, but insignificant to meaning.
    2)Biblical Hebrew was only written with consonants.
    3) The vowels “e” (sh’va), “o”(holom), and “a”(patach) refer to future, present and past tense consecutively, when added to YeHoVaH and therefore gives meaning “He will be, He is and He was”.
    4) If one use YaHWeH there is no particular sense to the vowel pattern.
    5) Hebrew vowels “change form depending on the number of syllables and on where the syllables are located in the name”.
    If there is one syllable, like in YaH, then the “a” is correct. Or if at the end of a word (ie Eliyah) the “a” is correct. “But when the vowel comes at the beginning with multiple syllables, it changes.” Examples given are names like Yehoshua (Joshua), Yehoyachin (Jehoiachin), YeHoyada(Jehoiada) or Yehoshaphat (jehosaphat) , which contain YHVH root letters, yet have the pattern “e”, “o” and “a”.
    When the pattern is applied to YHVH, one gets YeHoVaH.
    The individual concludes on this matter that he prefers YeHoVaH over YaHWeH for the following 3 reasons:
    1)The meaning of the vowels
    2) Grammatical form
    3) List of biblical examples

    Blessings to you,

    Ralph (Congregation Ahavat Yeshua, Washington DC)

  20. Perhaps a quote from a Rabbi or something, whenever you get the time – thank you! I am on the same page as you Dr. Brown when you say it doesn’t matter, but when you make statements like it’s universally accepted I just ask for evidence is all, thanks.
    God bless.

  21. Eric, you’re using a modern Israeli online dictionary. Use any biblical lexicon, check any biblical encyclopedia or Jewish encyclopedia — there’s nothing to argue about or dispute. Every Jewish and biblical Hebrew scholar in the world worth their salt knows the origin of Jehovah. Take the time to go to a good library and you’ll find all the evidence you need in less than five minutes. Since the Jewish Encyclopedia is available online, I copied the first few paragraphs of the entry under Jehovah.

    A mispronunciation (introduced by Christian theologians, but almost entirely disregarded by the Jews) of the Hebrew “Yhwh,” the (ineffable) name of God (the Tetragrammaton or “Shem ha-Meforash”). This pronunciation is grammatically impossible; it arose through pronouncing the vowels of the “ḳere” (marginal reading of the Masorites: = “Adonay”) with the consonants of the “ketib” (text-reading: = “Yhwh”)—”Adonay” (the Lord) being substituted with one exception wherever Yhwh occurs in the Biblical and liturgical books. “Adonay” presents the vowels “shewa” (the composite under the guttural א becomes simple under the י), “ḥolem,” and “ḳameẓ,” and these give the reading (= “Jehovah”). Sometimes, when the two names and occur together, the former is pointed with “ḥatef segol” () under the י —thus, (=”Jehovah”)—to indicate that in this combination it is to be pronounced “Elohim” (). These substitutions of “Adonay”and “Elohim” for Yhwh were devised to avoid the profanation of the Ineffable Name (hence is also written , or even , and read “ha-Shem” = “the Name “).

    The reading “Jehovah” is a comparatively recent invention. The earlier Christian commentators report that the Tetragrammaton was written but not pronounced by the Jews (see Theodoret, “Question. xv. in Ex.” [Field, “Hexapla,” i. 90, to Ex. vi. 3]; Jerome, “Præfatio Regnorum,” and his letter to Marcellus, “Epistola,” 136, where he notices that “PIPI” [= ΠIΠI = ] is presented in Greek manuscripts; Origen, see “Hexapla” to Ps. lxxi. 18 and Isa. i. 2; comp. concordance to LXX. by Hatch and Redpath, under ΠIΠI, which occasionally takes the place of the usual κύριος, in Philo’s Bible quotations; κύριος = “Adonay” is the regular translation; see also Aquila).

    Read more: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=206&letter=J#ixzz0nCTvuIdD

  24. Ty for posting that, I am open minded on this, but I don’t think just because it’s not Yehovah it’s automatically Yahweh.

  25. Eric,

    Feel free to write to our website, and someone from our staff will be happy to help you. Please do understand that when I say that something is universally recognized by scholars, I’m not just spouting air. Plenty of things are disputed, but the origin of the term Jehovah is hardly disputed by any reputable scholars in the world today, nor has it been disputed by almost any reputable scholars for hundreds of years.

    Is the pronunciation definitely Yahweh? Almost certainly, but we can’t say 100% for sure.

  26. Dr. Brown, if I may venture a question…

    I am left wondering how the vowels in A DO NAI translate to the sounds in JEH O VAH

    A O AI
    is not
    EH O AH

    Please tell me what I’m missing in my linguistic understanding, I beseech you…

    Thank you

  28. Ruth,

    The first vowel in ‘adonay is a shewa, a short e, similar to the e in the word enough, but because that exact form cannot come under an aleph in Hebrew (which is the first letter of ‘adonay), it is a modified shewa form, written instead as a short a. But when that same vowel (the shewa) is placed under the y in yhwh, it takes on its normal form of short e, thus you have ye. The o is the next vowel in ‘adonay, so ye-ho, and then the last vowel in ‘adonay is an a, hence ye-ho-wah. Follow? It’s really quite simple if you can read Hebrew, but I hope this explanation helps.

  30. One thing that is awesome was the fact that God was with Joshua, and Joshua kept the commandments that were given by Yahweh through the servant Moses. I thank God for the mercy that we find in Yeshua.

  31. Joshua 24:31 “And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.” I think that the people of Israel were very good people, morally and spiritually speaking.

  32. Hello dr. Brown and listeners,
    I have question about using name Jahve in Eastern Europe: In slovan languages it is common (or let´s say it is standard) to say instead of Jahve word „gospod“ (read: ghospood), which is originally Russian word and means „lord“. In other slovan languages it has similar forms (e. g. “hospodin” in Czech). Before christianity was spread into this part of the world „gospod“ was used as a name for pagan deity and later on they just transferred it on God of Israel. Now, there is a group of people that strictly rejects using of „gospod“ and for them it´s blasphemy to title God of Israel with the name that was originally title for pagan deity, argumenting that it´s holy comandment to pronounce name Jahve (as we read in many places in Psalms) and they would verbally attack those who use „gospod“. Most of the people don´t even know what gospod originally means and when they pronounce it they mean God of Israel. Do you think it´s OK to title God of Abraham, Isaac and Yaakov with the name that was used for pagan deity? According to my opinion „gospod“ is the same as a „ba´al“ in Hebrew. Ba´al was a name for pagan deity as well and despite it wasn´t blasphemy for David to title Jahve as Ba´al peratzim (1 Chron. 14:11). True is that the name Jahve is almost unused here in Eastern Europe.

  34. Hi Dr. Brown – here I am again. Although I’m not a Hebrew scolar, I still remember the song “Ma’oz Tzur”. It begins like this:

    מָעוֹז צוּר יְשׁוּעָתִי

    Now I understand that the word יְשׁוּעָתִי
    means “my salvation”. Is that right?

    And back to Psalm 118:14-15

    ” The LORD is my strength and song.
    He has become salvation to me.
    118:15 The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous.
    “The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.”

    What are the Hebrew words for salvation in these two verses?

  35. And the last verse of “Ma’oz Tzur” begins like this:

    חֲשׂוֹף זְרוֹעַ קָדְשֶׁךָ וְקָרֵב קֵץ הַיְשׁוּעָה

    which means “Bare Your holy arm and hasten the End for the salvation”

    Now הַיְשׁוּעָה

    means “The salvation” – hence יְשׁוּעָה

    means “salvation”. Right or wrong?

  36. And back to the names – I think that there is zero foundation for the name “Jesus” except for its history (what does “Jesus” mean?? Today Christians I know teach that the name “Jesus” is meaningless!),

    but Yahshua makes sense in regards to the fact that it is Yahweh who saves. So I don’t get bothered by people calling Him “Jesus” – but I think that there are far better reasons for calling Him Yahshua – Yahweh saves (Yah as the short form for Yahweh as written in the Psalms by David).

    So again – it absolutely does not make sense to get technical about this while forgetting the person that is behind this name – but in my opinion there is a huge difference between “Jesus” or “Harry or Joe” and “Yeshua” (salvation) or “Yahshua” (Yahweh saves).

    I do believe that one day we will see a lot of people in heaven that called Him “Jesus” here on earth – and I’ll be more than happy to meet them there – but this was now my technical answer to this discussion. Still I would appreciate your reply to my former two comments! Thank you!

  37. Erika,

    I encourage you to take some time to do some serious study with people who know Hebrew and have no ax to grind. When you do, you’ll get rid of this Yahshua stuff. You are Erika, not Arika or Orika, and He is Yeshua, Yahshua. And if you can read even the Hebrew letters, then you will know that salvation is spelled y-sh-w-`-h while Yeshua is spelled y-sh-w-` (without the final heh). One is a noun and the other is a proper name, technically called a hypocoristicon since it is a shortened form of a longer name (in this case, from Yehoshu`ah.

  38. Erika,

    One last comment to you about this, and I do hope that you will prove to be teachable. Don’t you think it’s wrong to make something up just because it sounds good to you and then change Yeshua’s name to fit what you and others made up?

  39. Erika, according to what I’ve studied and Dr. Browns articles Jesus comes from the Hebrew ישוע (Yeshua) goes into (quoting Dr. Brown’s article) “Greek Iēsous, then Latin Iesus, passing into German and then, ultimately, into English, as Jesus.” So.. It’s not some foreign name and far from “meaningless”, it’s consistent but it’s just not a Hebrew to English translation, which would be something like “Jeshua” in English.

    I am a bit confused if Yeshua is a shortened form of Yehoshua, Dr. Brown said it’s like Mike and Michael, if that’s the case then do we have a Messiah named Joshua/Josh, from a strict Hebrew translation of his “full name” Yehoshua?

  40. Eric,

    It would be like someone whose name is Jonathan being known all their lives as John, which is not perceived as short for Jonathan. And remember: Yeshua, like John today, was one of the most common boy’s names in the Jewish world at that time.

  41. Dr. Brown, is it possible that the word ישועה (Yeshuah/salvation) a feminine word, and the masculine form of “salvation” is ישוע(Yeshua)?

    BTW, I am just trying to learn this I’m not challenging if it comes from Yehoshua or not. Just curious if that is a possibility.

    Thanks again, and God bless you –

  42. Eric,

    It would really be worth your time to learn some basic Hebrew. Study it for a year or two and you’ll be greatly helped.

    The answer to your question is no. In fact, it’s not a question. Salvation is a noun and is feminine; Yeshua is a name and is not classified as masculine or feminine.

    And we know without any doubt that Yeshua is the short form of Yehoshua. Look for a moment at Zech 3:1 and then compare that with Ezra 5:2, both of which speak about the same person, Yehoshua/Yeshua, the high priest.

    I’m seriously baffled by why these things are causing you such trouble. I’m just stating facts here that are as simple as, “My name is Michael, your name is Eric.”

    Why does this cause such difficulties? I’m not writing this to criticize or put you down. I honestly don’t understand why there are questions.

  43. I am just asking questions, trying to learn? Sorry, I think it would offend you.. I guess I’ll just end it here then.

    Well thank you for all the help you did give and I do appreciate it. I don’t have a Ph.D in Semitic languages so I don’t know all the simple facts like you do.

    ty again. bye

  46. I was just asking questions, simple. That is all, I am learning and this is a topic that I am interested in so I want to be certain about what are facts and what aren’t facts.

  47. Eric,

    All clear. I hope you can understand that, in the midst of the some of the strange teachings that others hold and some of the challenging questions that others ask, I wasn’t sure if it was that simple on your end. So again, all clear!

  49. Dr. Brown, I don’t question that Yeshua is the short form of Yehoshua, I just don’t really know if the two words ישועה and ישוע are indeed not related at all to each other, since they are almost identical and are pronounced in exactly the same way. Do they not have a common root?

    When the angel Gabriel told Miriam how to name the boy he could have said “Yehoshua” or “Yeshua” or…

    So if he said “Yeshua” – did Miriam then really know how to spell it out? And if she did – do we?

    You said: “Don’t you think it’s wrong to make something up just because it sounds good to you and then change Yeshua’s name to fit what you and others made up?”

    Yes, I do think that is wrong, that’s why I think that there are better options for the Messiah’s name than “Jesus”. But I’m not dogmatic about this.

  50. So in my current opinion the angel Gabriel probably told Miriam to name the boy “Yehoshua”, but He might have been called “Yeshua” in short durng His lifetime on earth. But still “Yehoshua” means “Yahweh will save” – so the name has to do with salvation, while the name “Jesus” in itself doesn’t have a meaning.

    Now what do we do with Isaiah 7:14? Is this not a valid bible verse?

    I believe that the revelation of Yeshua is a ongoing revelation. He came as a baby, but if He comes again – will He still come as a baby??

    The disciple John followed Yeshua for a long time and should have known Him – but what does he say in Revelation 1:17? that he couln’t endure His appearance! What about names here? Do names not desribe the character of a person?

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